The Dark Half
by Crez451
Summary: There had been Harry; the burden of her existence, the child she never wanted... and there had been the other, little more than a shadow of an actual child. Potential HP/TMR slash.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.**

**Prologue**

31st October, 1981

The domestic white pick-fence truly was a sickeningly familiar sight; however unrelated, it still stood as an undeniable and unremitting link to all he despised from his haunting past. It was, in a way, the same picket-fence he'd been forced to confine himself in for the worst years of his life, sitting on the bland side staring out. Even after all these years and all that had happened, it still felt strange, and a little unearthing, to be staring into the caged space.

So it was with great reluctance that he unhinged the muggle silver lock from it's wooden frame and swung the fairy tale gate open. The swish from the gate created a small breeze, ruffling the leaves across the pavement and onto the finely cut grass, more so as he stepped through the arch of the gate. In front, the lights were on and Voldemort could hear delighted laughs and cries as James and Lily Potter enjoyed their last moments with their young son.

Unsurprisingly, he truly felt no remorse, not pity; just nothing for the crimes he has, and would, commit. It simply failed to matter, failed to bother him in every sense. No, the murder of the child is nothing to him; just another face in the endless stream of victims, perhaps a little younger than the rest. Except...

Except this child was different. This child, merely a baby, would become his defeater – his conqueror. The boy that had been destined to kill him. Ridiculous, he thought, snapping the hatch back shut with a flick of his long wand. Absolutely and utterly ridiculous. No mere baby, or even a grown man, would ever have any hope to defeat him, even if they, by any chance, became lucky and killed his body. It wouldn't be possible to kill him; he knew it, the fools of the Wizarding World knew it and, best of all, _Dumbledore knew it_. He would not be defeated: ever. The world, as the muggles did say, was at his feet.

There were shadows across the window to the little house now. No doubt the incompetent fools were pointlessly gushing around like a babble of headless chickens – rather; the boy and his pet mudblood would be desperately planning their own escape. He could picture it, as clear as day, in his mind. The boy, trying to act the heroic moron he was so fond of being, proclaiming he would be able, by some miraculous feat, to hold off the most powerful wizard of all time, twice his age, while the red-headed filth and the brat hid from sight. His lips lifted into a feral grin as the scene in his mind took a violent turn; as the head Potter fell screeching; beseeching, at his feet while the other Potter's screamed and cried and huddled together.

For the second time that night, Voldemort cracked a door open with the force of a tornado gushing threw. To his far right, in the corner of his eyes, he could see the wide-eyed, slack-jawed young man that spawned the little demon destined to kill him. Potter's wand was trembling dramatically in his hand, no doubt clammy from the amount of sweat he produced. Suddenly, Voldemort tersely.

"Potter," he drawled in the best imitation of Severus' voice he could manage. Successfully, he might add, because Potter's slack-jawed face was suddenly fuelled by a hatred that almost touched his own. There would be no misconceptions between them – Potter seemed quite aware that Severus had fallen into his inevitable fate; bending over backwards to serve his Lord's most tedious and extreme desires.

The Potter brat had now managed to wipe the anger from his face. Instead, there was a clear and – dare he say it – almost intelligent look as it's replacement. Whatever Potter might be thinking about, it was taking the majority of his limited brain capacity. A manoeuvre, Voldemort guessed, that would no doubt turn pathetic and fruitless, no matter how amusing it may prove. As much as he would enjoy the expression when he realised his plan wouldn't work, Voldemort had more drastic problems to take care of; the prophesied boy, for instance.

"V-Voldemort," he spat menacingly – well, as menacingly as a man dressed in his pyjama's could sound. Sweat could be seen dribbling down the side of his face in a small stream of unattractive stench that found Voldemort tutting at the atrocious and primitive display. He had no doubt the boy's heart was beating as erratically as it's little self could without forcing an unplanned heart attack.

"_Excellent _guess, dear boy. Now I shall warn you once – move aside, and I shall spare you. If not, than you shall die with the diseased little brat," he curtly said, as though the topic at hand was a common, domestic topic such as the weather. Potter had actually began to let off little unappreciative noises, like growling, after the insults had left his lipless mouth.

"I'll kill you if you take -" Potter started, his face pressed as he directed the blunt of hatred towards the intruder of his home. Voldemort, however, found the blatant display of courage over-dramatic and bothersome, merely lifted a pale hand and pointed towards Potter.

"Avada Kedarva," he cut in, grinning maliciously as the spark of life was ripped out of the ex-Gryffindor. Potter collapsed, his neck making a pleasing snap as it bashed against the wooden coffee table. Rather than stopping to admire his work, Voldemort's eyes traced the room until he found the stair-case leading to the second story. Mudbloods were animals; once the leader was removed, the rest fell to pieces without an intelligent thought between them.

He could hear the soft sniffles from the last bedroom at the end of the hall, along with the pathetic whimpering of a child. In the mudblood's haste to escape, she had knocked over an end-table which had been shoved up against a wall, creating a barrier between Voldemort and the walk-way. He flicked his wand once, and the end-table had vanished.

In the bedroom, the mudblood was cradling her brat to her breast whispering comforts in his ear. Voldemort scoffed at the pathetic display of emotion he there witnessed; the streaming tears, the blotchy red faces, the babyish gurgling of saliva – it was disgraceful, and it gave him a sense of pleasure in his knowledge that this would soon end.

"Stand aside, woman, and you may live," he commanded, although the woman made no apparent movement. Instead, her face twisted into an ugly look of challenge. She shifted the baby behind her, back into its bed, and raised her wand. Voldemort, tiring of the petty displays of bravery and loyalty, flicked his wand at her before she had time to mutter a spell, and the air was paved with green and the sound of a screaming woman. Her body fell to the ground with a thump, and the whimpering of the child ceased. He raised his wand for the final time that night, and uttered the curse.

And then there was pain.

**Next chapter will be much longer, as this is only the prologue. If you have any concerns, issues, ideas or questions, don't be shy to leave me a message. - Crez.**


	2. Strange Beginnings

**Chapter One: Strange Beginnings**

**December 5****th****, 1985. **

**Five years old.**

There was always Harry Potter, the offspring of her cursed sister, the disease that now plagued their family, the strange little toddler that never cried or complained – the sad little toddler that everyone hated. Even when the child was young, he was always a strange child. More intelligent than her son had ever been, the boy's uncanny reactions and intelligent always had a nervous effect around their family. And because they didn't understand him, they shunned him.

Vernon had never been hesitant to raise a well-deserved hand against the boy, though she used to cringe at the first few hits in the child's short life. Whenever the boy would make a foolish decision; got caught in the wrong moment at the wrong place, Vernon, with his chubby face red with anger, would raise a large pudgy hand and hit the child across the face. The first time, he cried as he hit the ground, looking up with large, confused eyes, wet with tears. Petunia felt the beginnings of pity for the child at that moment, but did not help him up. Instead, she attended to her crying child.

The next time, only months after, Harry had dropped a large plate with _canapés_ on it, ready to be served to Vernon's newest boss in hopes to impress him and gain Vernon a bigger salary. At the time, they had laughed it off as a nervous twitch Harry had, which the boss had bought instantly. But when their guests had left, Vernon had called the boy from out of his cupboard from under the stairs and slapped him. Harry had fallen to the floor, but he did not cry.

Every time after that, the boy had been affected by the punishment a tiny bit less. At the age of five, Harry did not cry. He did not complain. Petunia had become used to him, by then. He was just another imperfection; like the stain on the carpet, or the dent on the backyard fence.

And at five years old, Harry really was a different boy. By then, his sister's freakishness was beginning to show through – every time she attempted to cut the boy's hair, he would grow it back. Exactly the same, there was never any difference. She hadn't told her husband at the time, but when he found out from Dudley later that day, Vernon had been furious. He hadn't hit the boy once. Or twice. Or three times. But enough times to knock the boy unconscious.

And that was when Petunia first noticed him. The other boy. Strange and mysterious, he was barely a shadow of an actual child, though always there. Always watching. Never blinking. And after Harry's head had hit the ground on that very day, he attacked.

The lights blinked out with a sudden fury; pots and pans circled the air in a tornado of metal, the doors shook uncontrollably, shaking as if in anger. Petunia had never felt so frightened in her life, though she would not allow harm to come to her precious Dudley. Shielding the chubby body with her thin frame, she coiled around her child like she was a snake, wrapping him in a tight embrace and covering his eyes so he did not see the destruction hailing around them.

The shadowy boy stepped forward, little more than a toddler, and in his high commanding, though young, voice said;

"Don't touch me!" The toddler cried, his eyes flashing red for a terrifying moment. Petunia was nodding frantically, now sobbing along with her son from fear – her sister had never been able to do such things, no matter how old she got. Vernon, however, was not having it. His face was repulsed, whether it was from being told what to do by a toddler, or by seeing such blatant displays of magic. Either way, he came, if possible, more furious.

"I don't care who you are, brat, but you do not do your freaky, god-forsaken magic in my house, and you certainly do not tell me what to do!" He spat, raising a furious hand. The little child's face went red, his blotchy, faded features becoming more pronounced as the metal-ware in the air spun even faster.

"No!" He yelled, an explosion of the toaster occurring mid word, as though the child's furious attitude had caused an ignition in the circuits. As Petunia would later realise, as she cleaned what the child left of their kitchen, he had, in fact, ignited the circuits. But as for the moment, she merely flinched as the explosion took place.

Vernon was staring at the remains of the toaster with more fury than he had ever shown at Harry. His forehead was drenched in sweat as the unused muscles stretched over his round, fat face, hiding his small, beady eyes.

Though before he had time to utter a single sound, the angry toddler had sent the various ports and pans spinning at Vernon, the pace to rapid they looked little more than a grey blur in her once-clean kitchen. Vernon had no time to duck out of the way – the silver ware, whizzing past, slammed around his face with a loud bang, then several following crashes to signal them falling to the floor. Petunia looked to her husband in horror, seeing a large cooking pan stuck to his face, his finger still raised in the air from anger.

"Dear?" She asked, breaking the solitary silence as her husband ceased to move. As if by a spell, the pan dropped from his clammy face and clattered to the floor, rolling around with it's metallic ringing noise. Vernon's eyes blinked once; twice. His shock at being attacked in his own home, by a magical toddler, having stunned him to silence. All of a sudden, the slowly calming child was walking towards them, his serious expression much too commanding for a child so young. If Petunia had thought Harry was an intimidating child with his unnatural maturity, she had not been thinking right. This boy – this _fake _boy – was terrifying, having a more controlling air than most the adults she knew.

"Don't touch me, you pathetic muggle," he stubbornly repeated, too dangerous to be cute, folding his arms over his slight chest, and training his serious eyes on Petunia, waiting. Petunia nodded hurriedly, hoping the little freak would vanish quicker if she did. Nodding at her, he turned his head to Vernon, who was still staring. Unmoving.

"Well?" He impatiently asked, the fallen pots and pans beginning to shift again. Vernon, breaking out of his stupor, did not nod like Petunia hoped. Nor did he offer any agreement. Instead, he bought his hand up and, in a quick succession, swiped it across the child's cheek in a quick, yet harsh, slap.

The hand went right through the translucent skin, as though the skin was never truly there. In fact, the only evidence Vernon's hand ever came near the skin was the strange rippling sensation that followed, the boy's features rippling in a water sensation as the hand passed through. And that moment – that action – was when the child released hell on them.

He gave a sudden cry in indignity, furious at the cruel treatment. The metal-ware was once again raising to the air - the air that seemed so much colder than the usual December chill - in a sharp cut. The doors, kitchen and foyer alike, were rattling against their hinges, slamming at the amount of magic in the air, though Petunia did not know that. All she knew was that this child, this _diseased _child, was ruining her home – hurting her husband. Scaring her child. And despite the immediate danger, she jumped forward, fully intent on tackling the child.

And everything went black for a horrifying moment. She could feel a pain on her right temple – when had she been wounded? It didn't matter. Her baby was crying. She thoughtlessly, naturally, rushed over to him, ducking the floating kitchen utensils, and once again wrapped herself around the young crying child, smoothing his hair down against his fat forehead, ignoring the chaos behind her. When it came to her precious Dudley, _nothing_ was more important.

Meanwhile, Vernon's shock at the child was quickly evaporating – he had just seen the blasted boy send a spinning pan at his wife's soft temple, hitting hard enough that Petunia had been knocked backwards from the force of it. That, with the combination of his dearest son's terror, was enough to make him angrier than he had ever been, by far. Petunia could almost see the steam pouring from her husbands ears as his red face turned purple from the complete and utter rage.

"You!" He shouted, trembling, "you little... " he trailed, swearing profoundly. Petunia covered her child's ears from the language, desperately hoping Dudley wouldn't copy any of the words for his own slurred speech. The little child glared stubbornly, going as far to raise a chubby hand this time. Vernon took a step back, worried about the reaction of the child to his initial advance, however there was no further movement. Slowly, his translucent features began to blur and alter, fading into the background, until nothing remained. All the objects in the air fell to the ground in a heap of displaced metal.

Vernon looked around, stunned at a combination of the unforgivable display of magic, the uncontrollable child, and said child's sudden, spontaneous disappearance. More than that, the event itself was an unusual that Petunia had never had to deal with before – her sister, when using magic as a child, had never been so uncontrollable, nor so powerful. While her husband stared at the spot where the child had been with a dumbstruck expression, Petunia sat soothing the hair on her baby's head, muttering comforting words in his ear and staring at the unloved brat stirring on the ground.

"Vernon," said she, "do you think the tiles will be scratched?"

**AN - I lied, the chapter isn't that much longer. So shoot me. I'm probably going to stick to short chapters because I'm lazy and it'll encourage me to spend more time writing. And please, if you have the time, tell me what you think, or if there is anything you wish to discuss/point out. - Crez.**


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